Only A Dream
by Onyx Sprita
Summary: Valkyrie gets stuck in a parallel universe. Or does she? Something weird's going on, anyway... Multichap, rating might change later.
1. Something Odd Happens

Only A Dream

'What if none of this is real?'

Fletcher looked at her like she was insane - a perfectly rational way to respond to such a weird, out-of-the-blue question.

'What do you mean?'

'What if it's just a dream and I'll wake up tomorrow as a normal, boring teenage girl? No magic, no skeletons, no evil gods...' _No Darquesse._

'I don't know.' Pause. 'Is that what you want?'

'No.' _Yes. _'I was just thinking. It's possible, right?'

'Um, everything feels pretty real to me.'

'Maybe for _you. _Maybe you're just a person in my dream.'

'Since when did you turn all philosophical, Val? It's getting kind of weird.'

She didn't answer.

'Are you OK?'

'Yeah...' _No._

But if it _was _a dream, and if she _did _wake up tomorrow as ordinary, boring Stephanie Edgley, living her ordinary, boring, magic-less life, without the pressure of Darquesse hanging over her every second of the day, filling her with cold worry and dread, what would she think of this dream she had just had, before it faded away like smoke and she got on with things?

Just a cool, exciting dream, or a terrifying nightmare?

She turned to Fletcher. 'I don't know. Sorry. I know I've been acting weird lately...'

'Yeah, you definitely have. Is everything really OK? Is your mum all right?'

'Yes.' _But if Cassandra's vision comes true she won't be._

She banished this sudden, terrifying thought out of her mind and attempted a casual shrug. 'I think it's the Necromancy. It's kind of depressing.'

He smiled and pecked her on the cheek. 'But when you're around me it's hard to stay depressed for long, right?'

She rolled her eyes and tried to smile back, but she wasn't sure how convincing it was.

That night, she tossed and turned in bed before eventually falling asleep... and the dream she dreamed was the strangest she'd ever had.

She was no longer Valkyrie Cain - she was a stranger, a girl named Stephanie Edgley. Stephanie Edgley's life consisted of school, where she had a slight crush on a boy named Gary Price and no friends to speak of - home, where she got on well with both her parents but spent a lot of time in her room - and swimming and walking on the beach. Her only real enemies were Hannah Foley from her class, and possibly her cousins, Carol and Crystal the toxic twins. Her only real fear was that her whole life would carry on like this - boring, meaningless, completely lacking in adventure.

She missed her uncle, the writer Gordon Edgley, whose books allowed her to escape from the real world, if only for a little while. He was the only person who seemed to have understood her need for adventure and excitement in life. But now he was dead. She'd been to his funeral. She thought he'd have been disappointed by the people who attended it - mainly their family and some people from his publishers.

That had been three years ago, when she was twelve. She was fifteen now, and the three years that had passed since then had been boring to say the least. She really, really hoped that in the future, it would be different.

What a strange dream, Valkyrie thought, and tried to wake up.

It didn't work.

She was lying in bed on Monday morning, with five minutes to go before her alarm went off. _Wake up, _she thought. _You're dreaming, wake up._

But she was awake, it seemed. How could she be dreaming if she was awake?

Now very confused, Valkyrie Cain - Stephanie Edgley? - sat up in bed and looked around. Her room looked the same, apart from one very subtle difference - her black clothes, which always hung over the back of her chair, were gone. Now there was a school uniform hanging there instead.

She picked up her phone and looked through her contacts. Skulduggery, Tanith and Fletcher weren't there anymore. Instead she had a load of names she didn't even recognize - Anna Healy, Kate Butler, Sarah Rourke. Such ordinary names compared to the types of names she'd gotten used to hearing.

Thinking of names sent a chill down her spine as she thought of her own. Not Valkyrie, or Stephanie, but Darquesse. The same chill that she'd felt several times a day since that fateful night the dream whisperer had spoken to her. The same chill that was brought on when she thought of how bleak, cold and horrible her future now looked.

Or did it?

After all, if she'd never heard of magic...

... if she couldn't even do magic...

...then she couldn't be Darquesse.

She thought of what Skulduggery had said. _'Sometimes people never realise they can do magic, and die without ever knowing how great they could have been.'_

At the time, she'd thought it was sad. Now, the thought filled her with hope. Somehow, in this dream that had to be real because she wasn't waking up, she had never heard of magic.

Maybe there was no magic. Maybe it had all been just a dream.

Of course. If this was real, then what she'd previously thought was real had to be a dream.

A tentative smile spread across her face.

Her alarm went off.

Time for school.

**A/N: Confusing? XD**

**She has been trapped in a paralell universe in which Skulduggery got stuck in traffic and missed Gordon's funeral. :)No, not really.**

**I'm not sure whether to update, or leave it as a oneshot, because my plotline has some serious holes in it. Review? **


	2. Back To School

**Back to School**

For the first time in three years, Stephanie Edgley - Valkyrie Cain? - put on her school uniform and ate breakfast with her parents, took the bus to school and was forced to mingle with her classmates for half an hour before class started. She was greeted by a group of girls whose names she didn't know, and had to pretend like she knew them while they chatted away about TV and the Irish test and boys whose names she didn't know either. It was only slightly less difficult than fighting a Faceless One.

'So how are things going with you and Gary?' a girl who Valkyrie thought might be Anna asked.

Valkyrie looked blank. 'Me and Gary?'

The other girls laughed. 'Yeah, your boyfriend since last year?' Sarah Rourke said, eyebrows raised. 'Honestly, you can be so dense sometimes, Steph...'

It was meant as a light-hearted jibe, but it irritated Valkyrie. She tried to stay polite as she answered, 'Oh, yeah. Um, they're going fine.'

'You're so lucky,' said Kate Butler wistfully, 'he's so cute...'

'Who would have thought you'd end up with the most popular guy in the year?' Amanda Smith said affectionately. 'It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?'

The others laughed.

'Look, he's coming over here!' Kate squealed under her breath, and all the girls looked over at the admittedly handsome brown-haired boy coming towards them. 'Hey,' he greeted them politely.

'Hi, Gary,' they all replied, with the exception of Valkyrie, who was going into panic mode by this stage.

'All right, Steph?' he said to her, slipping his arm around her waist and kissing her cheek. Valkyrie instantly stiffened.

'Fine, thanks,' she said coolly, trying to step away from him, but he held her fast.

He frowned. 'What's wrong?'

'Er... nothing. I've just got to, um, get to class, that's all...'

He looked bemused, as did Valkyrie's 'friends,' but she picked up her bag and hurried away without looking back at them. She headed to a random classroom - she was going to have to figure out her timetable all over again, oh joy - but class didn't start for another fifteen minutes, so it was empty. This fresh start thing was more complicated than she'd thought. She suddenly missed Fletcher. A lot. Would she really never see him again? And what about Tanith, Ghastly and Skulduggery? Kenspeckle and China? Did they even exist anymore?

She shook her head, annoyed at herself. They had never existed. She had dreamed them all.

Then why did they feel so real?

She gritted her teeth. She was being ridiculous. She would make this work. She would.

After a while, other people started streaming in the door, including Hannah Foley, her past nemesis, and Gary, who sat down in the desk across the aisle from Valkyrie's and grinned at her. She tried to smile back, but knew it probably looked more like a wince.

Then her English teacher entered and the lesson began. Valkyrie knew she was in trouble before she'd even opened her book. The teacher was yakking on about stuff she'd never heard of, and although she was still good at English, she had never even heard of the novel they were supposed to be studying. It was like there was a gaping void in her memory, which had been replaced by a load of stuff that her imagination had fabricated.

Maybe it WAS possible to go insane from boredom.

'Stephanie Edgley, can you tell me why Annabel didn't want the marriage to go ahead?'

Valkyrie, unaccustomed to being addressed with her given name, didn't look up.

'Stephanie Edgley?' the teacher repeated, looking annoyed now.

Anna Healy, was sitting next to Valkyrie, gave her a nudge. Valkyrie looked up, saw the teacher glaring at her, and blinked. 'Oh, sorry. What did you say?'

Valkyrie had never been popular with her teachers, even before this. She didn't like the way they demanded respect they hadn't earned, and therefore they'd decided she had an attitude problem.

'You mean, _Excuse me, Miss Burke.'_

'Excuse me, Miss Burke?'

'I said, why didn't Annabel want the marriage to go ahead?'

Valkyrie had no idea.

'Umm... because she wanted the groom for herself?'

Miss Burke's eyes narrowed. 'I don't think so, Miss Edgely. She was the mother of the groom.'

The class tittered and Valkyrie mentally kicked herself. 'Oh. Right. Yeah.'

'You need to concentrate, Miss Edgely. Extra revision homework for you. Write a nine hundred word synopsis of the plot and hand it in tomorrow.'

Valkyrie bowed her head and let her hair fall over her face to hide the angry flush creeping across her cheeks. She wasn't used to being ordered about or punished and she figured she would have a lot of adjusting to do.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Valkyrie spent break trying to avoid the girls and Gary. Gary was nice, and he was cute, but he wasn't Fletcher, and anyway, she hardly knew him - whether he was her boyfriend since last year or not. That thought scared her slightly.

The incident in English class had raised her spirits slightly and she was beginning to think that maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Every second thing seemed to remind her of the magical world though, and once she tried to close a door using air manipulation before remembering that she wasn't able to do it anymore. That had depressed her.

It also made her feel powerless - she felt weak without her magic, and vulnerable, even though, as she constantly tried to remind herself, it wasn't like she needed protection.

She felt more comfortable in a world of magic and skeletons than she did in a perfectly normal schoolyard environment. She didn't know what half the other girls were talking about most of the time, and she felt glaringly different, even though she knew that to her classmates, she was just the same as them. All in all, it made her feel pretty low.

Gary finally caught up with her as she walked to the bus stop when school was over. 'Steph, what was up with you today?'

She adopted a Who, me? look. 'Nothing. I'm fine.'

'You practically ran away from me this morning, and then you avoided me all through lunch. What's the matter?'

The bus pulled up and they both got on. She didn't have much choice but to sit beside him.

'I'm fine, Fletch - Gary.' She winced at the slip, but he didn't seem to notice. 'I'm just... tired, that's all. I've been, you know, helping my mum, because she can't do much anymore, being pregnant and all.'

'You could have at least _talked _to me.'

'I was going to, at break, but, um, I was in detention.'

'Who gave you a detention?'

'Eh... Miss Burke.' She smiled apologetically. 'Sorry about that.'

He still didn't seem convinced, but at least he didn't seem annoyed anymore, either. Seeming slightly happier he said, 'So, do you want to go for coffee after school tomorrow?'

She couldn't help thinking that she would rather gouge her own eyeballs out, but again, she didn't seem to have much choice. Feeling weirdly like she was cheating on Fletcher, she said 'Sounds great.'

'OK, then.' He smiled and played with a strand of her hair, making her feel acutely uncomfortable, and then the bus came to a halt at her stop. She rose quickly but just as she was about to hurry off, Gary said, 'Wait,' pulled her back down to his level, and kissed her.

She endured it for a few unhappy seconds, thinking about how much nicer Fletcher's kisses were, and then pulled away, her face burning. 'See you tomorrow,' she mumbled and rushed away, looking at the floor.

She walked the rest of the way home, burst through the front door, yelled a greeting to her mum, and then ran up the stairs, collapsed onto her bed and sobbed.

**A/N: I FIXED THE PLOT! :DD**

**It'll get more exciting soon, I swear. Thanks to kathy, NerdySkeleton, Holly Swift, smileysgoboing and AngelOfTheUndead2 for your reviews :)**


	3. Figuring Stuff Out

Thoughts

Valkyrie decided to just sit down and _think. _She had all weekend, and the house to herself. Surely she could figure this out.

And she had to stop thinking of herself as Valkyrie, she reminded herself. She was Stephanie. Valkyrie wasn't real.

So she thought.

First she came up with a brief summary of her dream. It had begun at Gordon's funeral. She had met a strange man in a coat, hat and scarf who had told her she was like her uncle. Later, at Gordon's will reading, she had discovered his name was Skulduggery Pleasant.

Since then, she had met a skeleton detective who'd taught her magic, she'd been injured, changed her name, almost died, become an excellent fighter, made friends, fallen in love, been injured again, discovered that her destiny was to kill the world, and woken up.

It had been a very long dream.

But how did it explain the memory loss?

It was so goddamn frustrating!

'Valkyrie?'

Valkyrie turned around, surprised to hear her taken name, surprised to hear anything when she'd thought she was alone. Standing behind her, looking blank and unemotional, was _herself._

'Hello,' the other girl said. 'I'm your reflection...'

**That was a load of drivel. :L**

**This chapter is quite short and boring and I don't like it but it's kind of necessary for the plot... because there is one, trust me. XD**

**Anyway, next one will be more exciting, promise. **

**Thanks so much to the reviewers :D I love you all!**


	4. Twist

Chapter 5 - Twist

Valkyrie stared, unable to answer. The girl looked like an exact clone of herself, and the blank, unemotional stare she wore was very, very familiar. It was definitely her reflection, as she remembered it from her dream.

The girl spoke again, in Valkyrie's voice.

'...or am I?' she said, with a sudden, strange smile.

'What?' Valkyrie croaked.

'The truth is,' the girl said without answering Valkyrie's question, 'I don't know anymore.'

'You don't know what?'

'Whether or not I'm your reflection. Whether I'm Valkyrie Cain... or just a mindless copy. Am I Valkyrie, or are you Valkyrie? The distinctions get blurred. Maybe there is no difference at all.'

While Valkyrie tried to make sense of that, the girl went on: 'What are your memories of the last three years?'

'For the last three years,' Valkyrie said slowly, 'I was the magical partner of a skeleton detective and my name was Valkyrie Cain. Then I woke up and I was an ordinary magic-less girl called Stephanie Edgley.'

'Interesting,' the girl said. 'For the last three years, I was an ordinary magic-less girl called Stephanie Edgley. Then I woke up and I was the magical partner of a skeleton detective and my name was Valkyrie Cain. But I didn't know anything about the magical world, so I can tell you, I kind of struggled to adjust.'

Valkyrie stared.

Suddenly it all made sense.

It hadn't been a dream at all - she and the reflection had simply switched places somehow. She and the reflection were supposed to absorb each other's memories, but something had gone wrong and that was why she couldn't remember anything about school and the reflection couldn't remember anything about magic.

'But,' she said, 'how come I haven't seen you since we switched? Surely you still live here?'

'No,' the reflection replied. 'I live at Gordon's now.'

'Awesome,' she said, suddenly feeling as if the sun had come out. 'Let's just switch back then and we can get back to normal.'

The reflection's smile widened. 'Oh, I don't think so,' she said.

'I'm sorry?'

'As a mere reflection,' the reflection said, 'I couldn't do magic. But as a result of my overuse and my time spent with the skeleton detective... I learned. Look at this.'

She clicked her fingers and a fireball appeared in her palm.

'I can do magic,' she said in a whisper. 'And I'm not about to let go of that power.'

Before Valkyrie could react, she stepped forward...

... and shoved Valkyrie into the mirror.

**YAY! PSYCHOTIC REFLECTION!**

**And I'm so happy. I have a plot (of sorts). FINALLY.**

**I know there are (still) some serious holes in it, but I'm not sure how to fix them. I'll get around to it, in the next few chapters hopefully. **

**If the storyline confuses you, it confuses me too... but it's starting to make more sense now XD**

**Please review and tell me what you think! xxx**


	5. Backwards

Chapter 6: Backwards

Valkyrie stumbled back and gasped. She was in the same room, only backwards, and all she could see of the room she'd left behind was through the mirror. She pressed her face against the glass and hammered on it, screaming, but there was no sound. Silent tears flooded down her face and she fell to her knees, all hope gone. There really was no way out of this situation.

Her forehead resting against the glass, her body shook with huge, silent sobs. She'd thought she was strong, but the incomprehensible events of the last week had struck so fast, she'd been confused, unprepared, and now this. Shoved into a mirror by her own reflection. No-one was strong enough for that.

With the narrow view of the real room she had, she could see that the reflection had left. She wondered what exactly she was planning to do. It was a terrifying thought. The reflection was emotionless, and therefore there was no limit to how cruel she could be. She'd already established how she liked power, and there was probably nothing she wouldn't do in order to increase that feeling of power.

And everyone thought she was Valkyrie. The Valkyrie Cain that they - in Skulduggery's words - 'all know and tolerate.'

Would they notice the difference? And if they did, would they twig what had happened? And if they did twig what had happened, would they know what to do?

She had to have faith, because she couldn't get out of this by herself.

She forced herself to calm down, and went for a wander around the mirror room. It was exactly the same, but everything was back to front. The writing on the posters was all backwards. And it seemed bigger, for some reason. Everything was silent, cold, very familiar but at the same time, strange and unwelcoming.

She sat down on the bed. At least it was as comfortable as it had always been. She lay back, and then she couldn't stop herself falling asleep.

**A/N: Another boooooooooooring chapter. It's also short. I tried my best though... :( The next chapter will have some action, some drama, you know, some interesting stuff... so stay tuned! XD And please review! I love you guys!**


	6. Rescue

Chapter 6

Valkyrie was awoken by a loud tapping noise. She had no idea how long she'd slept for, but the sound startled her. Before this, the room had been absolutely silent, and even as she got up and walked around, trying to find the source of the noise, she couldn't even hear her own footsteps. She couldn't even hear her own breathing. It was like being stuck in a silent movie.

Except for that relentless tapping.

She made her way towards the surface of the mirror, and her jaw dropped. On the other side, tapping at the glass, was Skulduggery Pleasant.

So he _was _real.

Of course he was. She'd known that all along.

He took out a piece of chalk and drew a symbol on the surface of the mirror, then touched it. And without really thinking about it, Valkyrie stepped through the glass as if it were water. She looked around. She was home.

'Welcome back,' said Skulduggery, and she knew that if he'd had a mouth, he'd have been smiling.

She felt emotion well up inside her, but all she said was, 'Good to see you again.'

'You too.'

'So what now?'

'We stop that psychotic reflection of yours from taking over the world.'

'That's a good plan.'

'I have my moments.'

As they walked out the door of her house, Valkyrie saw someone waiting outside.

'Fletcher?' she shrieked and the next thing she knew she was in his arms. She finally allowed herself to let the tears flow as he held her. Skulduggery made an exasperated noise and wandered over to the Bentley.

'How'd you know it was me?' she mumbled into Fletcher's shoulder.

'You think I wouldn't know the difference between my own girlfriend and a blank, emotionless copy?' he teased her.

'My own parents don't know the difference...'

'Yeah, but they'd hardly jump to the conclusion that your reflection's come to life.'

'True. You know, I kind of missed you when I was the reflection.'

'Kind of?'

'Shut up.'

He laughed.

'Can't you have this conversation some other time?' Skulduggery complained. 'We're on a bit of a tight schedule.'

They parted, Valkyrie wiping her eyes, embarrassed.

'Where are we going?' Fletcher asked.

'Gordon's.'

'Why?'

'To beat the crap out of Valkyrie's reflection.'

Valkyrie grinned. She really had missed this life.

They drove to Gordon's in the pouring rain and tried to open the front door, but it was locked. Skulduggery snapped his fingers and the door fell down with a thud, revealing a suspiciously quiet, empty house.

They entered slowly, footsteps echoing. Skulduggery summoned fire into his hand, and Valkyrie automatically tried to do the same before remembering that she couldn't. Scowling to herself, she walked after Skulduggery. She didn't like this feeling of being helpless. Fletcher looked terrified already, which made her hide a smile.

They checked all the rooms, but the reflection was nowhere to be found. 'This is odd,' muttered Skulduggery.

A sound behind Valkyrie made her turn around. Behind her, grinning, was herself.

'Speak of the devil,' muttered Skulduggery, and lunged.

She scowled and sent a kick to his chest and he threw a fireball, which she dodged. Then she straightened and sent shadowy tendrils from her fingers which wrapped around him and no matter how hard he struggled he could not shake them off. Then she turned and did the same to Fletcher, who was just standing there, stunned, and she turned to Valkyrie, and she wasn't smiling any more.

Valkyrie's magic was gone and her heart was thudding. She would have to get by on physical combat alone, and as far as she could see, she didn't have much chance.

The reflection dived at her, shadows coiling around her hands, just inches from Valkyrie's face. Valkyrie grabbed her wrists and held them away from her and just as the reflection was about to send knives of shadow into Valkyrie's eyes, the shadows disappeared. The reflection frowned.

'That's weird,' she mused. 'The room's been bound...'

Valkyrie took the oppurtunity to raise her foot and kick the reflection in the stomach using all her force, sending the reflection flying back. The reflection ran at her as she was getting to her feet and tried to throw her to the ground, but Valkyrie grabbed her hair and pulled her back. And then Skulduggery, who was no longer tied up because the room had been bound, sauntered over and shot the reflection, once, in the head. The reflection fell back, limp, dead.

Valkyrie sat down in an armchair, realising she was shaking, and Skulduggery patted her shoulder comfortingly. 'Like tearing up a photograph,' he reminded her.

Fletcher walked over shakily. 'Well,' he said. 'That was interesting.'

'You do realise,' Skulduggery went on, 'that you cannot possibly use your reflection as a stand-in anymore?'

'I never thought of that,' Valkyrie said. 'What am I going to do?'

'Nothing else for it,' Skulduggery told her. 'You need to tell your parents.'

Valkyrie groaned.

'But let's leave that for another day, shall we?' said Skulduggery. 'For now, mission accomplished.'

And they left, to get some rest so they could tackle the problems that tomorrow was inevitably going to bring.

**A/N: THE END!**

**Gah. I suck at endings. And fight scenes. But I hope you liked it anyway. ^ ^**


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